Did the Asiana crash have basically the same cause as the Indian Airlines A320 crash

[JammedStab]

Haven't flown the Bus but may do so at some point. I am clear on the Asiana 777 cause and was wondering if the Indian Airlines A320 was the basically the same thing.

[recceguy]

So you recognised you have no knowledge of one of the two aircraft involved (50%) and honestly, it will help the understanding of your post(?) if you could elaborate (write ?) a little bit more.
Do you communicate this way in your cockpit ? Poor Captain trying to follow you ...

[KRviator]

I think he means Indian Airlines 605, that crashed as a result of mis-setting the altitude bug to 700' instead of the VS bug to -700FPM, and commanding Open Descent. By the time the crew realised the screwup it was too late to do anything about it.

[EGPFlyer]

I think he means Indian Airlines 605, that crashed as a result of mis-setting the altitude bug to 700' instead of the VS bug to -700FPM, and commanding Open Descent. By the time the crew realised the screwup it was too late to do anything about it.

That was a hole in the cheese but the bigger factor was only turning one flight director off, leaving the autothrust in ‘thrust idle’ rather than ‘speed’

[ironbutt57]

same basic theme, lack of automation understanding, resulting in automation mismanagement, resulting in a boo-boo

[JammedStab]

So you recognised you have no knowledge of one of the two aircraft involved (50%) and honestly, it will help the understanding of your post(?) if you could elaborate (write ?) a little bit more.
Do you communicate this way in your cockpit ? Poor Captain trying to follow you ...

Sounds more like you have a comprehension problem seeing as the others understood quite well.

Haven't seen the accident report on the Airbus and as I said, not familiar with the type even if I were to read it. There was a very brief mention of it in a magazine article I recently read and it did compare it with Asiana but without further detail.

Seeing as the Bus appears to be in my future I am looking for more info on this accident of which there is not a lot of detail due to it happening a quite a long time ago. Of course there is info on it but not nearly in the way there was of the Asiana crash with extensive PPrune posting and discussion.

Thanks to those who gave intelligent responses.

[FlightDetent]

Basically, it was not the same. :)

[A Squared]

Well, there seem to be some remarkable similarities to me. Both were a case of aircrews sitting there, watching their airplane crash into the ground (water) well short of the runway in VFR conditions in the middle of the day, while they waited for the airplane to do something.

[Vessbot]

Basically, it was not the same. :)

Sounds to me like it was. Automation mode confusion led to idle power where it should have been much higher, and insufficient monitoring allowed the energy to get too low (speed in one case, altitude in the other) until it was caught and acted on, too late.

[A Squared]

By the time the crew realised the screwup it was too late to do anything about it.

This is what I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around. How do you (in daylight, VFR conditions) not notice that the airplane you're piloting is on a trajectory to crash a half mile short of the runway?

[Vessbot]

This is what I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around. How do you (in daylight, VFR conditions) not notice that the airplane you're piloting is on a trajectory to crash a half mile short of the runway?

I'll take a stab at it, at the risk of invoking armchair psychology borne from my flight instructing background. I think that people react to unusual and/or sudden situations not by rational analysis (which if employed in these 2 cases would have said "Whoa, we're flying at the ground. Let's fly at the runway or the sky instead. And let's do so by making the appropriate pitch and power inputs.") but by gut-level reactions that are akin to instinctive reflexes. Or, a "comfort zone" if you will, of what actions will be taken. You'll always run to your comfort zone. Like that if something suddenly flies at your face, you'll blink. Now that's biological, and the aeronautical reflexes I'm talking about are not; but they're trained-in to a level where they might as well be. Like if you're driving a car and it starts drifting left, you'll automatically correct to the right without even thinking about it.

Well the problem comes in with what is "trained in." And in flying, that comes in from your daily habits. For someone who's mostly done manual flying, (especially if it involves readily taking the controls over from another guy who's going out of bounds) that involves... manual flying. Seeing if the airplane is where you want it to be, and if not, putting it there. That is trained in. That's the comfort zone. So for someone of that background (or at least, recently) when the autopilot starts doing something other than what's intended, he will readily take over with the red button on the yoke (as he has, a multitude of times taken over from students) and put the airplane where he wants it.

Instead, for someone who flies purely with the automatics (due to whatever combination of SOP, company culture, personal background, etc.) it is trained in that any deviation from what's desired, is corrected by manipulation of the automatics. If a startling situation comes up, the gut-level comfort zone they run to won't be to fly the airplane (since that doesn't exist for them as a comfort zone) but rather to do a quick sequence of button pushes and knob twists to get the mode and values in the right place... just what they've been doing, in regular flight, every day for years or decades.

Now, this may work as intended, but it may also not. Because unlike manual flight, there can be quite a bit of logic involved in what modes are active and how the airplane is going to behave in reality vs. what's expected. So the sequence of button pushes and knob twists may not work; and now that the airplane is even closer to crashing, the pilot is getting panicky and even more tunnel visioned, and his next reaction is even likelier to be constrained to the gut-level comfort zone of a further flurry of button pushes and knob twists. If the pilot is automation dependent and has no confidence in his manual flying (and the fig leaf of the box checked in the sim 6 months ago will not provide that) then it will be difficult to impossible to break out of that loop and push the red button. I've seen exactly this in the sim, and it is scary.

http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/IndianAir605/Indian%20Airlines%20Flt%20605%20%20Accident%20Report.pdf

This is the accident report, and here is the relevant part of the CVR transcript:

25.9 to
24.8
304.8 to
306.6 CM2 (You are) descending on idle
open descent ah all this time
22.7 308.7 CM2 You want the FDs off now
21.4 310 CM1 Yeah
19.7 311.7 CM1 Ok, I already put it off
17.9 313.5 CM2 But you did not put off mine
14.8 316.6 Two Hundred
10.7 320.7 CM2 You are on the auto pilot still?
8.4 323 CM2 It's off
7.35 to
6.6
324.5 to
324.8 CM1 Hey, we are going down
6 325.4 One hundred rate
3.9 327.5 Sink rate
3.6 327.8 Chime
2.3 329.0 Sink rate 30
0.6 330.8 Sink rate 10
0 331.4 Crash sounds begin


I can't paste it in a way that the formatting isn't munged up, but the series of numbers that starts at 25.9 and counts down is seconds to impact. So at 25 seconds they realize that something is wrong, and that's actually a long time! Start a 25 second timer right now and sit on your hands, and see what it feels like. They had that much time to push the red button and fly the airplane away from the ground... had they had the confidence in their flying and the fortitude to make the decision. On a VFR day! But instead they proceeded to try to untangle the automation settings and convince the airplane to do it itself.

[Vessbot]

In the same vein, Flash 604:

02:43:55 CA: Autopilot
02:43:56 MSR227: Right zero four
02:43:58 CA: Not yet
02:43:59 ATC: There is no problem Straight in ILS approach runway zero four left god willing report fuel establish QNH one zero one
02:44:00 FO Autopilot in command sir
02:44:01 CA: Exclamation remark
02:44:02 : Sound of A/P disengage warning
02:44:05 CA: Heading select
02:44:05 MSR227: Straight in approach runway zero four lrft, one zero one, next call full establish Egypt air two two seven
02:44:07 FO: Heading select
02:44:18 CA: See what the aircraft did!
02:44:27 FO: Turning right sir
02:44:30 CA: What?
02:44:31 FO: Aircraft is turning right
02:44:32 CA: AH
02:44:35 CA: Turning right?
02:44:37 CA: How turning right
02:44:41 CA: Ok come out
02:44:41 FO: Over bank
02:44:41 CA: Autopilot
02:44:43 CA: Autopilot
02:44:44 FO: Autopilot in command
02:44:46 CA: Autopilot
02:44:48 FO Over bank, over bank, over bank
02:44:50 CA: OK
02:44:52 FO: Over bank
02:44:53 CA: OK, come out
02:44:56 FO: No autopilot commander
02:44:58 CA: Autopilot
02:44:58 EC1: Retard power, retard power, retard power
02:45:01 CA: Retard power
02:45:02 : Sound similar to overspeed clacker
02:45:04 CA: Come out
02:35:05 FO: No god except...
02:35:05 SV: "whoop" sound similar to ground proximity warning
02:45:06 END OF RECORDING

[A Squared]

I'll take a stab at it, at the risk of invoking armchair psychology borne from my flight instructing background ...

Good thoughts. I suppose that that explains my reaction to the Asiana and Indian accidents, having spent the vast majority of my career in decidedly manual airplanes (DC-6 and now L382). It just seems so foreign to me to not put your hands on the throttle and yoke and fly the airplane in a better direction.

[JammedStab]

The similarity between the crashes appears to be flight director operation and only selecting one off.

In the Asiana case, based on company SOP's for a visual approach, both FD's were supposed to be selected off(in order to change the A/T mode to SPD which would cause the A/T to adjust to maintain the selected speed) and then one selected back on(this allows for the F/D to continue to be displayed throughout a go-around). But instead, only one F/D was selected off with the other remaining on(instead of being selected off then on), allowing the throttles to stay where they had been placed(idle) regardless of indicated airspeed.

From what I can tell, it seems that the Airbus is the same way or very similar. Is that correct.

[A Squared]

Along those same lines, I'm reminded of a discussion on an aviation forum some time ago. Someone told a story, perhaps apocryphal, of some sudden failure at an ATC facility where the radar displays all went blank and the controller told everyone on frequency to immediately enter a hold at their current position. The ensuing discussion centered mostly around people talking about how many pages they woulds have to go through on their FMS to get to the page for programming holds, an how long it would take to get the hold parameters entered, and how many miles they'd likely fly before they could get the airplane to enter a hold. Given that the underlying premise was a situation where it was a matter of flight safety to enter a hold ASAP, it didn't seem to occurs to anyone to hit the red button and start a constant level right turn, or if you weren't sure you could do that, select heading mode and turn the bug right, and *then* worry about establishing a holding waypoint, and leg distance, etc.

[A Squared]

Side note: There probably wasn't quite the emphasis on stabilized approach parameters in India in 1990 as there is today, but it's interesting to note that the Captain elected to go around when he realized that he was above profile and the Check Airman talked him out of it.

[Vessbot]

"Yeahh, that's the mantra in the schoolhouse these days, but they're disconnected from how it really works out here on the line..."

The attitude is very much alive and well.

[megan]

there can be quite a bit of logic involved in what modes are active and how the airplane is going to behave in reality vs. what's expectedDare one mention Habsheim?

[A Squared]

Dare one mention Habsheim?

You're just trying to get this to run to 80 pages, aren't you?

[sheppey]

How about this one in Indonesia. Piss poor piloting as expected in that part of the world where the culture is Real Men don't Go Around".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_904

[sheppey]

Now, this may work as intended, but it may also not. Because unlike manual flight, there can be quite a bit of logic involved in what modes are active and how the airplane is going to behave in reality vs. what's expected. So the sequence of button pushes and knob twists may not work


Well described. Yet another case here: Nice day but head in the cockpit pressing buttons

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2015/aair/ao-2015-018/

[vilas]

No matter what aircraft you fly , whether automatics or manual, you don't fly an approach without ever looking at speed. In Indian crash 27kts, in SFO crash 31kts below Vapp. Not a single call by anyone about speed. Both flights were command checks. Doesn't say much about the checker does it? All involved had lost their scan quite some time ago. They were an accident waiting to happen.

[Timmy Tomkins]

This is what I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around. How do you (in daylight, VFR conditions) not notice that the airplane you're piloting is on a trajectory to crash a half mile short of the runway?

Turkish Airlines did it at Schipol (circa 2007?) 3 on the flight deck busy talking

[A Squared]

Turkish Airlines did it at Schipol (circa 2007?) 3 on the flight deck busy talking

FWIW, both the Visibility and Ceiling were below VFR minima (Or at least US VFR minima) they were on a coupled approach following the glidepath.

Not that it excuses them, but It's easier for me to understand not catching the decreasing airspeed as the plane follows the glidepath. To be sure, an inexcusable lapse, but from my perspective very different than being on a visual approach in good vfr conditions and not taking action when your airplane is headed for an impact someplace a long way from the runway (aside from also losing track of airspeed)

I do agree that there are common elements; the autothrottles doing something other than what the pilots were expecting and a period of time where the autiothrottle mode was unrecognized or misunderstood.

[FlightDetent]

The non-similarity issue of Asiana againstthe A320 is that if those Airbus gentlemen had only pulled, the A/C would have saved everyone. As well as their "initiation" of the doomed trajectory. They flew the aircraft by actively selecting a mode and not reviewing what they'd done.

Both of the Boeing cases OTOH, the crews found themselves through no wrongs of their own in a LOW energy situation ABOVE G/S, close to the ground. Walked over a trap.

[Timmy Tomkins]

FWIW, both the Visibility and Ceiling were below VFR minima (Or at least US VFR minima) they were on a coupled approach following the glidepath.

Not that it excuses them, but It's easier for me to understand not catching the decreasing airspeed as the plane follows the glidepath. To be sure, an inexcusable lapse, but from my perspective very different than being on a visual approach in good vfr conditions and not taking action when your airplane is headed for an impact someplace a long way from the runway (aside from also losing track of airspeed)

I do agree that there are common elements; the autothrottles doing something other than what the pilots were expecting and a period of time where the autiothrottle mode was unrecognized or misunderstood.

Fair point re vis I guess. Discipline rules all the time good or bad WX.